


Around the World and Back Again

by deskclutter



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Deathfic, Growing Old, Kannon-sama is omniscient, Multi, Reincarnation, fanthwaps, life after death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Goku takes himself off on a journey, some time after the ikkou disbands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Around the World and Back Again

When he is twenty-something, Hakkai teaches him how to cook.

White rice comes out black and charred, nothing like raven feathers, and Hakkai tells him that practice makes perfect.

"Really, Hakkai?"

Well, perhaps not, Hakkai admits, several tries later.

At thirty-something, Goku tells Hakkai that persistence pays off, and Hakkai laughs. Gojyo tells Goku that he'll believe it when Goku makes meatbuns just like Hakkai does, and Goku says, that's not fair, Hakkai has a billion years more practice, damn kappa.

Sanzo grumps about noisy animals, and smacks the both of them with his fan for old times' sake.

  
When Goku was really young he hated the fan. Really, really young because the young don't understand, and most times old people don't either, like a lot of the monks, but Goku thinks he's learning. Sanzo sneers, but sometimes when the moon is bright and the night is quiet, he says _perhaps_, and that's good enough. Because Goku _understands_.

Sanzo's older now and Goku...isn't, kinda. Because Sanzo and Hakkai and Gojyo have wrinkles, tiny ones like birds stamped down on the corners of their eyes and raked feet through their foreheads, and Goku's just thanking whoever can hear that they haven't lost their hair because a world without Sanzo's hair would be like a world where Sanzo believed in piety and morality of life, and that would be a scary world. Goku looks maybe twenty-something still, and he isn't getting older, and it hurts, just a little, because he doesn't want to be alone again. He wants to kill those birds, the ones who have put lines in their faces, but he can't see 'em and Sanzo says there are no birds.

"You stupid monkey," he adds, and the fan flies down in full force, just like it did when they were all young and Jeep carried them all the way to the West, and Goku never once gave in to the impulse to eat him. These days Jeep sleeps more, and sometimes Jeep watches Hakkai like Goku pretends not to watch Sanzo. And Sanzo doesn't lift the fan to hit people as often "because," he says when Goku asks with something a little like naivety or terror in his eyes, "you fucking morons aren't worth the effort it takes." And Goku wants to gibber in fear there and then, but Sanzo aims the cold barrel of his gun at Goku, and he calms down.

  
The gun Sanzo leaves to Hakkai, when he dies. He is the first one to go, and Hakkai and Gojyo watch Goku with worried eyes later. When they think he doesn't know, they stay up late to watch him, playing cards, and Gojyo curses when Hakkai wins (which is always) and he runs thin hands through greying hair, and Hakkai doesn't look so much better. Goku worries, and tells them not to, then he wonders _why_ Sanzo gave Hakkai the gun, and figures it because if he or Gojyo got it they might maybe burn it in effigy and dance around it or something. (But that doesn't explain why Jeep keeps trying to steal it like Hakkai says.)

("The card's yours. Do whatever the fuck you want with it."

"Okay. What about Hakkai and Gojyo?"

"They'll find out."

"Okay."

"Stop saying "okay" like a fucking idiot."

"Okay, okay, geez--oh crap."

"You are a stupid monkey." And he taps the fan against Goku's temple.

Goku grins, and it is all water. "Can I have the fan too?"

"Greed is disgusting, moron.")

Gojyo swears because Sanzo left him a letter. "Fucking monk gave me _advice_, of all things. Who the hell wants advice from him?"

"Oh," he adds in a high falsetto. "There's a postscript! 'Tell the fucking monkey I love him.'"

"What the hell?!" Goku yells, and they fall down in a heap of limbs, and Goku is very very careful not to look like he's being careful.

Hakkai picks up the letter. "'I heard a voice, and then I saw a light.' How cryptic."

"You know the fucking baldy," Gojyo mutters, picking himself up. Goku could swear he creaks. "Can't do anything the easy way."

"Yeah," Goku murmurs. "Yeah."

"Oi, no-brained chimp," Gojyo calls just before Goku leaves, like a little postscript of his own, after the farewells have been said. "I'm not made of glass."

  
Goku leaves the temple after a few months because he was really only there because Sanzo was, and the priests don't like that he doesn't age. He's not sure he really likes it himself. _I don't want to die,_ he reminds himself, and goes.

But he looks in on the Sanbutsushin before he goes anyway. They tell him that Kanzeon wishes him luck, and ask again, just like after the journey, if he wants his memories back. Again, he says, "No, I don't need 'em." And he adds, "They'd clutter up what I gotta remember."

"Well, then," they tell him. "Another gift." A familiar set of scrolls fall at his feet.

His mouth goes dry. "Gift or curse?"

"Neither. Both." The heads do not shrug, but they look like if they could, they would. "Take them. It's what he would want."

"No," says Son Goku. "He wouldn't, 'cause they belong to _him_. But I can hold 'em for him for a little while." And he packs the Tenchi Kaigen sutras in his bag. He faces them again. "I dunno where I'm even goin', ya know."

The three of them look as though they are preoccupied for a moment, then the androgynous head says, "Kanzeon Botatsu would like to inform you: you know where you are going and se knows you know for se knows all'."

"Is that word for word?"

"No," they admit.

"Tell me," he suggests, and when they do, he laughs.

  
Laughter's not in short supply, as the days become months become years. But real laughter like he used to with Hakkai and Gojyo and by Sanzo, that he can't find, and he doesn't suppose he really will. He goes to India, and back again, and he goes to Japan over the sea. He likes boats and sometimes he gets a good fight out of it too. If anyone tries to get the sutras he fights them tooth and nail, and no one ever does. He's still getting stronger.

But not strong enough to conquer age. One day he hears about a guy who shot himself in the head. True story from Chang An, the other guy says, so Goku gets a ride back, over rivers and towns, and he wishes for Jeep. And when he gets back some people recognise him, Gojyo's old drinking buddies, and they tell him that Hakkai killed himself literally hours after Gojyo kicked it. It's the latest story, so everyone has the details, and Goku's got the gold card to keep them talking for hours. "What about th' gun?" he asks, and is told it went to the temple, maybe because they know it came from there, but more likely some other fucker made off with it.

"The little dragon took off," a guy who's less drunk than the others tells him. "No one knows where." Goku buys him beer enough to get drunker than his fellows.  
Goku fingers the fan in his pocket, and decides that yeah, greed is disgusting.

  
The years run by like sand, and it depends on the year and how he feels whether they slip fast dry as a bone or slide in sluggish clumps like wet bits of clammy stuff. He watches emperors come and go, and revolutions run full circle. He's gone one thousand years before too long, and he's not found Sanzo, or even a Sanzo priest.

Sometimes he thinks he sees Kougaiji in a crowd, and looks again, but there's nothing.

He travels more: he goes to Korea and further west to deserts and water and the sea, and then he stows away in a boat somewhere and sees corn in America and he gorges himself in Europe because he has a gold card, and Sanzo must've wanted him to use it right? He goes to more deserts in Africa and when he's seen enough of poverty, he almost gives up his card, but he wants to live more. He sails to Malaysia, and Indonesia, and their weird gods there, but then he thinks of Kannon-sama and grins again at the thought of Sanzo getting kissed by Kanzeon Bosatsu. He meets kids who grow up, but he never watches them do so. He hears about Nan Yang, and he goes there too. Sometimes it looks a lot like home, and sometimes it doesn't look a bit like it at all. It's cool.

He always comes home to China, though China's huge, and bits all over feel like home as it could've been without Hakkai and Gojyo and Sanzo, only it wouldn't have been home without them, but it still feels like home anyway.

  
One day he lands at Hong Kong and it feels like those years where everything slows down and gets dark, and it's not just 'cause Hong Kong's filthy. It's been way more than a thousand years, and though sometimes the sutras're in danger, and he needs to protect them, for Sanzo, most times there's no more challenge any more. Maybe he's getting old, and he checks for bird feet at the corners of his eyes, but there's nothing there.

He strays through the noisy streets of midnight to the early morning, and people yell out what they're selling, and maybe he buys a meatbun for nostalgia. Maybe he buys a dozen. Lights flash like a million million fireflies made bigger and coloured by an insane person in neon green, blue, red, yellow, pink. Dawn comes and goes, and the night vendors leave for the day. Mid-morning passes, and birds overhead against the black-and-greyness of the polluted city. At noon he feels his head grow hot under the sun, and he goes to eat dimsum because Hong Kong dimsum is good. He wanders down alleyways and beats up random people who think it'd be fun to attack him. He kills most of them, because they'd get those tracking thingies on him, and he can't look for Sanzo like that. His shadow lengthens with the day but he doesn't pay attention 'cause his silhouette hasn't changed in years and years. All the while he's looking for gold hair and purple eyes that aren't fake hair and eyes, which isn't easy any more. Maybe he's missed Sanzo a thousand times over, but he's got to keep looking because there's nothing else he can do.

The next guy drops down, and in his head, Goku is taking points away. That's ten for unoriginality, twenty for a really stupid battlecry, ten more for the sloppy footwork, and fifty for the terrible dialogue. A final ten for a really ugly outfit.

"Minus a hundred," he tells the guy kindly. "And you're done." Blood flies.

Then Goku turns.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Goku can't speak for a bit because he thinks he's dreaming. No, he thinks he's just woken up. "That your real hair colour?" he asks, and the light hits it just right to blind him.

"Going to make something of it?" There's a wealth of memory in that glare. It's like watching time go back.

It _feels_ like someone just gave him a hundred thousand gold cards and he's been allowed to eat everyone in the world out of house and home.

"Nah," Goku says with a thick tongue. "Not with eyes like mine."

The small Sanzo stares at him with distaste. "You look," he pronounces. "Like a fucking monkey."

"Maybe I am," Goku says, grinning a little. "Hey, I think I've got somethin' of yours." And he drops a yellowing fan into the kid's hand. "I'm Goku, and someone told me that I've been lookin' for ya all my life." And he watches a bit of recognition grow.

"And you can't decide that for yourself like a fucking idiot," says the boy, sliding it somewhere about his person. "Where the fuck were you going, monkey?"

"Dunno," He feels the slap bite the back of his head, hard enough to rock him forward, a bit. "Ya gotta use the fan," he complains. "Or it doesn't feel right. Hey!" And he runs after the boy, who is striding towards the setting sun.

  
"It took you long enough," Sanzo observes. "_How_ many times have I reincarnated?"

"You coulda given me a sign or somethin'," Goku complains. "I was lookin' _forever_!"

"I left you a fucking message."

"I found ya anyway, right? In th' end?"

Something swoops over their heads, and says, "Kyuuuuuuuuuuu~" They look up, and an antique metal gun drops in Sanzo's lap. It looks just right for his fingers, which is weird because it looked just right when Sanzo was bigger and it looks right now even though his hands are small.

"Jeep!"

Sanzo regards the white dragon. "We're going to look for the other two idiots."

"Wanna come?" Goku asks. "I promise I won't eat ya."

Jeep just dives into Sanzo's lap and preens, and Goku begins to feel like everything's coming together. "Sanzo," Goku remembers suddenly. "I got somethin' for you." He rummages around and dumps stuff out of his bag. Sanzo and Jeep watch in silent horror. Goku doesn't remember picking up half that crap. "Uhh, hold on."

Sanzo reaches a hand out, and picks up a pair of old scrolls that Goku must've missed in his rush to get them. They haven't gotten battered like the stuff all over the ground. The Tenchi Kaigen sutras fall open in crisp colours, like it was just yesterday they created the world, and Sanzo puts them on. Something eases just a bit in Goku's chest.

"Monkey," Sanzo says. "Where the fuck is my gold card?"

"Eheh," Goku says, looking at the mess on the ground. Sanzo puts his face in his palm, and then he hits the monkey. The whoosh of the fan feels like bird's wings when they fly off and away, and the sting of it feels just as hard as a lifetime ago. And the world falls over and it's like everything that was the wrong way up is right again, or getting that way.

"You are a stupid monkey," Sanzo snaps.

  
Persistence pays off, Goku knows, and he thinks he's begun to grow again.


End file.
